religiosity

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Thanks to Leah Stern of Studio Juno for capturing our girl so perfectly and for making Seth and I look much better than we do in real life.

I've always loved the winter holidays. I grew up sort of nominally Christian, though I was an atheist by about 16, and we never went to church. Sure, I sang Christmas carols about Jesus, but I loved them for the melodies and the sentimental familiarity than for any religious significance. We had miniature nativity scene as part of our decor, but it had just always been in the house. Christmas was about cookie baking, tree decorating, singing, Santa Claus, merry making, treasured gifts wrapped in shiny paper, snowball fights, skiing, sledding, friends, the warm light and laughter and food of holiday parties. You'd recall from time to time that a lot of this lovely beauty was kind of supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus, if you're into that sort of thing, but whatever. It wasn't essential. And the clever Christians just tagged onto the pagan celebrations in order to get more converts, so the tree, the Yule logs, the food, the lights, Jesus, Santa Claus, all got rolled into a mongrel of multicultural stuff that we now call "Christmas." It's still beautiful and fun.

Then I had to go marry a nice Jewish boy from New Jersey. Who grew up as a secular, cultural Jew, and not a religious one. And then this nice cultural atheist couple had to go and have a baby, and that's where things have started to get a little complicated.

Honestly, all the Jewish holidays are so much easier. They're a lot more straightforward, since Judaism has (mostly) kept them from being bastardized and mongrelized into some amalgam of pagan and religious and commercial. With Jewish holidays, there's always a good story as the basis. And it's a story that has cultural and historic underpinnings. Hanukkah: Judah and the Maccabees took back a temple from the King of Syria. There was only enough consecrated oil to fuel the holy flame of the temple for one night, but it lasted eight nights, which was (apparently) enough time for more consecrated oil to be made. Yay, miraculous oil! Thus, eight candles for eight nights, and delicious things fried in oil, like latkes and doughnuts. (Oh, and some gift giving, because, well, the Christmas people are doing it and we don't want to be left out from any rampant commercialism.) It's hardly the most farfetched story in religion (see, e.g., that really confusing Bible tale about immaculate conception, some star, Three Kings, mangers, animals, mean innkeepers, etc.). It's easy to get on board with Hanukkah because it's simple.

Then there is Christmas. With all its baggage. The Olive is old enough to start "getting" birthday and Hanukkah and Christmas and all that and I am all of a sudden a high-strung mess about OH DEAR GOD WHAT DO WE TELL HER ABOUT BABY JEEBUS AND SANTY CLAUS AND GODDAMN, THERE IS A LOT OF SCARY LICENSED CHARACTER SHIT IN TOYS 'R' US. Because now I am old and know too much, and the religious overtones are everywhere, and how the hell do I explain this whole Christmas mess, half of which I don't believe in at all?

Seth lets me have a Yule Tree. It is not a Christmas tree, because it is decidedly not about Christ, as the tree tradition is also not about Christ. I had to agree that it would be a totally pagan tree. Which it pretty much has always been, in my family. No star on top. Secular ornaments. (They're almost all horses, because I was a horse-obsessed child, and our Christmas tree just ended up that way. Then my mom got tired of all the stupid horses and sent them all to us. Seth rolls his eyes, and says the excess of horse ornaments just reeks of "spoiled little girl." I point out that there are also a cow, a buffalo, a train, and several sentimental and worn ornaments on the tree, so I wasn't totally indulged.)

So we have a tree. I put up lights outside, because I love holiday lights. This long, dark season can be hard for me and those sparkling lights on everyone's porch at night really do lift my spirits. Those pagan solstice celebrants knew what they were doing with their evergreens and lights, yo, reminding the people that it won't always be cold and dark, and that the green and the light will return.

The thing about Christmas, Yule, solstice, whatever we decide to call it...the thing is, it's PRETTY! And FUN! I have a reindeer's buttload of great memories of the Christmas season. I know an awful lot of Christmas tunes by heart. I try not to play the Jesus-centric ones, because, well, see aforementioned atheism, but I have sentimental attachment to some, like Silent Night. That is one lovely song, y'all, and it's fun to sing. Religious or not, how can you not be moved by the magnificence of Handel's Messiah?

And old Santa Claus. Sigh. St. Nicholas. Sigh. Darn it, he's fun, too. It's fun to believe in the myth and the magic of flying reindeer, to see the cookies eaten in the morning, and a rite of passage when you stop believing. We're going to do the damn Santa Claus thing, despite my misgivings about his religious origins. Even if I'm having a slightly hard time buying the girl a copy of "Twas The Night Before Christmas" because it refers to St. Nick.

I want my daughter to have her own lovely, twinkly-light memories of this season. What a lucky girl she is, to get to light candles to celebrate the miraculous oil, as well as decorate an evergreen tree to celebrate light and warmth amidst the cold and dark. She will be showered by presents from both sides of her family, for both holidays. We will bake cookies and fry latkes. We will wander our neighborhood, our breath freezing in magic clouds in the air, looking at holiday lights and listening for carolers. I hope she will go caroling too, later in life, experience the fun of singing to strangers who then give you hot chocolate and cookies. I'll answer all her questions, as best I can, about Jesus and Santa Claus and reindeer and the whole mess of it. And hopefully not scar her for life. Ooh, look! Pretty lights!